6.00pm. Booths have closed. Your first port of call in all respects should be the ABC site; me second.
6.29pm. The new Bayview booth in Fong Lim has apparently been reported: ABC radio says it shows an inadequate swing for David Tollner of less than 5 per cent, but this is based on Antony Green’s guesstimate of how the booth would go.
6.34pm. ABC Radio reports early figures from Brennan and Drysdale showing the CLP with a big enough swing for the former but not the latter.
6.38pm. A small booth in Daly shows a 5 per cent swing to the CLP, not nearly enough to put Labor in trouble if it’s indicative.
6.40pm. Trish Crossin says scrutineers say Labor are looking good in Fannie Bay and Fong Lim.
6.41pm. ABC site now providing results.
6.43pm. ABC computer says CLP retains Blain, Araluen and Drysdale (Drysdale is Labor-held but notionally Liberal post-redistribution); Labor retains Brennan (a big win if so) and Fong Lim.
6.45pm. ABC Radio reports CLP scrutineers sounding very confident about Braitling, no problems in Araluen.
6.46pm. I suspect that Brennan call is highly premature: one very small booth has reported. Labor Senator Trish Crossin tells ABC Radio that Drysdale is not looking good, having been made notionally CLP by the redistribution. Antony Green says consistent 5 per cent swings across Darwin.
6.49pm. ABC computer gives Labor Fannie Bay, Wanguri and Fong Lim – so no dice for David Tollner if accurate. It also gives Katherine to the CLP, which on the raw figures looks like a sound call. It was expected they would face a strong challenge from independent Toni Tapp Coutts.
6.52pm. CLP Senator Grant Tambling tells ABC Radio the two booths in Fannie Bay are highly disparate, so we shouldn’t assume they’re out of the hunt on the basis of the one that has reported.
6.54pm. The Ludmilla booth reporting in Fong Lim has changed the situation there dramatically, according to ABC Radio: apparently very tight. That’s with about 50 per cent counted compared with 11.8 per cent recorded on the computer.
6.56pm. ABC computer now calling Fong Lim for Tollner.
6.57pm. ABC computer calls Stuart for Labor: no surprise there.
7.00pm. ABC Radio reports about 30 per cent counted in Johnston and no trouble there for Labor.
7.02pm. Independent incumbent Gerry Wood romping home in Nelson.
7.05pm. Live coverage from Sky News, but no luck from ABC TV streaming.
7.08pm. ABC computer says CLP to retain Greatorex, Labor retaining Johnston.
7.12pm. ABC Radio says Greens polling strongly in Nightcliff; Labor to win.
7.14pm. ABC TV streaming now in business, but the news is still on.
7.15pm. Slight CLP lead in Labor margin Port Darwin. Another strong performance for the Greens.
7.17pm. ABC computer says Terry Mills to retain Blain for CLP.
7.19pm. Let’s look at the best case CLP scenario. They have won Drysdale and Sanderson; no figures for Goyder but let’s say it theirs; Brennan and Fannie Bay not good on early figures but too early to call; could well win Port Darwin and Fong Lim; haven’t won Nightcliff or Johnston; no real figures from Daly or Casuarina; anything else probably not winnable. ABC Radio indicates the Labor will win Karama. So I’m giving them seven seats, could well win another two, will need to do a lot better to win a further two, and another two we don’t know about yet. The outer limits of the best case scenario gives them 13 seats and a bare majority.
7.27pm. Labor has clearly retained Casuarina, so I’m now ruling out a CLP majority.
7.29pm. Clare Martin tells ABC TV the CLP is doing better than she had expected.
7.32pm. Martin says Labor in “serious trouble” in Brennan, but the ABC computer still only reporting 8 per cent. Fannie Bay very close.
7.34pm. Antony Green still indicating Labor will win.
7.36pm. Great result for Jodeen Carney in Araluen. Maybe if she’d been leader …
7.42pm. ABC Radio says Labor 12, CLP 9, independent 1, in doubt 3.
7.42pm. Antony Green confirms Labor defeat in Brennan, but Clare Martin says Labor looking good in Daly.
7.46pm. Outstanding seats to watch: Fong Lim (likely CLP gain) and Fannie Bay (likely Labor retain). If the CLP wins both it could be 12-12-1. Slow count in Daly but Labor 10 per cent ahead: maybe the CLP can still hope for a miracle there. Overall swing of over 9 per cent, according to ABC.
7.51pm. So CLP notionally retains its six seats; seems to have won Brennan, Port Darwin, Sanderson; ahead in Fong Lim, behind in Fannie Bay; has won Braitling from a retiring independent. So 12 seats not out of the question – meaning it’s too early to say Labor has won.
7.56pm. Daly count firming up, Labor has clearly won. All down to Fong Lim and Fannie Bay, and CLP likely to gain the former. Most likely result 13-11-1, but 12-12-1 not impossible.
7.58pm. CLP leads in Brennan by 3.2 per cent, 58 per cent counted, so they’re almost certainly home there.
8.01pm. For my own reference: Fong Lim CLP leads 2.4 per cent, 50.8 per cent counted. Fannie Bay Labor leads 1.4 per cent, 59.3 per cent counted.
8.03pm. NT Electoral Office site not handling the strain.
8.05pm. Well, isn’t this exciting. Labor 40 votes ahead in Fannie Bay: the 1.4 per cent figure is purely a projection, which are of less use in NT elections than other places.
8.06pm. Looks like the early scare for Labor in Stuart, based purely on speculative ABC computer projection, has now passed.
8.15pm. Antony says we will get 50 more pre-poll votes tonight from Fannie Bay, where Labor leads by 40 votes. Would like to hear a similar update from Fong Lim.
8.21pm. There seems to be some vague doubt about Arafura: independent preferences to decide the result on currently available figures, but yet-to-report Aboriginal communities should resolve the issue in Marion Scrymgour’s favour.
8.22pm. Antony notes low turnout in Fong Lim and speculates we could get a lot of absent votes from voters confused by the new boundaries, which makes sense because it’s a new seat.
8.26pm. I gather this independent in Arafura has directed preferences to the CLP: Antony says 11 per cent of preferences need to leak to Labor for Scrymgour to win.
8.34pm. ABC computer says the Labor lead in Fannie Bay is now 55 votes, up from 40.
8.36pm. Antony says 57 votes.
8.40pm. Antony says Labor’s scare in Arafura has passed.
8.45pm. Important political lesson: don’t knife a leader who takes you to a gigantic landslide victory without any historical precedent.
8.52pm. The overall vote is line-ball on two-party preferred, although this might be corrupted by the two seats where Labor members were elected unopposed.
8.56pm. David Tollner’s lead in Fong Lim has narrowed: with the vote count up from 50.8 per cent to 55.0 per cent, the margin is down from 2.4 per cent to 1.6 per cent.
9.00pm. Renewed doubt about Arafura: leakage required to Labor now 18 per cent rather than 11 per cent.
9.22pm. Antony says substantial preference leakage in Arafura means Scrymgour is out of the woods. All down to Fannie Bay then.
9.29pm. Remiss of me not to have mentioned the extraordinarily low turnout.
9.50pm. Paul Henderson’s speech concedes the CLP only nine seats, apparently regarding Brennan and Port Darwin as well as Fong Lim as in doubt. Much talk of the low turnout and the possibility of large numbers of absent votes as a result of the redistribution.
I think most Territorians just want some answers and action. They are sick of the arge bargy of black/white fella politics and just want some logical solutions. Most would see the intervention as a good thing.
I didn’t see it as a big factor in the vote, either way
Was it the NT election that the big punter placed the $100,000 bet on the ALP? If so he wouldn’t be sleeping too well tonight.
John
#248
“Obviously not you Ron, but those who have dominated this chat talking Green politics…”
Oh Green politcs , yep th 8% of Green voters who cann’t tell th difference betwween Labor and Liberal parties , whereas th other 92% can seee a big difference and so vote one or th other Guess Katherine was winable if no CLP voters voted
.
Th PRO CLP Intervention policy i thought may be only a lite factor Perhaps we hav for first time in ‘oz’ a US type “Bradley Factor” Its a theory suported/disputed in USA and applies to US black candidates where voters do not talk about there uncomfortable ‘black’ feelings for fear of being called a racism , and then lie to pollsters saying they’ll vote for th black candidate , but in secrecy of ballot box vote with there secret feelings against th black candidate How would one know if its rubbish , such theories ar hard to rebut
I’m not in touch with the redneck element but I have had the feeling for a while that the generation of strong emotions with regard to Aboriginals and Aboriginal issues one way or another ended with the CLP demise from power. One good thing about the demise of the CLP and LNP is the removal of racism from electioneering.
There are no doubt those that were motivated that way but it is simply not noticeable, even in private.
My explanation for the swing is that:
The old CLP is distant enough now that people no longer hold distaste for them; Terry Mills as leader is actually the opposite of the old CLP character;
Thus the pendulum’s huge swing last time comes back to center.
Consistent negative press has tainted the ALP over time;
The ousting of Martin for no particular reason;
Henderson being relatively new in the job hadn’t really connected;
Higher living, housing and rental costs;
Sound growing economy giving people confidence to change;
People assumed Labor would win so voted CLP to give some opposition;
Basically people saw the CLP under Mills as a different more human party and the ALP a party lacking a personal connection (Martin gone).
Now would the CLP have won if they hadn’t come out and threatened public service jobs? Probably cost them Fannie Bay maybe.
IMHO
It also seems that negative politicing aka Howard, GOP and the ALP this time no longer works that well, if at all. People have become so familiar with it and so suspicious of pollies they are rejecting the negative approach.
They will have to be more sublime in the negative campaigns in the future – no doubt we will follow the next GOP lead on that.
Thanks Ron
great comment…just not sure what you are tryinmg to say.
Funny about tonight. The winners are losers and the losers are winners. Reminds me of the Sneddon comment “while we didn’t win, we didn’t lose either”.
244
John Says:
There have been a lot of posts on this blog forecasting all sorts of wild results for the ALP. I go back to previous messages; get your head out of your ass and look at reality. The CLP were never going to win (came closer than I even predicted) but were never going to lose by the margin predicted by those who can’t differentiate between logic and blind allegiance.
We are all geniuses with the benefit of hindsight, John. Might be worth pointing out that virtually nobody, including the ‘professionals’, predicted anything like this outcome. So I think that us amateurs on this site are entitled to a little slack.
To your credit, you did call it 13-11-1 for the ALP, which is looking pretty good at the moment.
However, getting it right once is no big achievement, you could have just fluked it, even a stopped clock is right twice a day. So unless you successfully predict election outcomes at a rate far above the average pundit, I respectfully suggest get off your high horse. I am prepared to bet you have got it seriously wrong before, more than once, and will do so again.
Lastly, I am hardly a blindly allegiant Labor party diehard. I have changed my vote before, more than once, and will no doubt do so again.
248
John Says:
even predicting an ALP win in Katherine were talking about what they wanted rather than what would happen.
Don’t know if you are referring to me, but if you are then you might wanna get your facts straight. I didn’t predict a Labor win in Katherine, just said that it could be interesting seat to watch (because there was a popular independent preferencing Labor), and that the CLP couldn’t take it for granted this time. Hardly a fantasy land prediction.
Ben Raue @ 103,
I don’t know about the northern suburbs being reduced in electoral importance. They do remain one obstacle between the CLP and government.
244 “Looks like the silent majority shocked all.”
By probably returning Labor to power when you say yourself,
‘The CLP were never going to win (came closer than I even predicted) but were never going to lose by the margin predicted by those who can’t differentiate between logic and blind allegiance.’
Who is shocked? The Labor Party who have probably won or the CLP who have probably lost. The margin is immaterial, the bookies will pay up whether the win is one seats or the lot. The Government will be formed whether the ALP win by one seat or 25 seats.
The only people in shock seem to be CLP supporters for reasons unclear but apparently associated with some delusion that running last in a two horse race means they can now take over the known universe. Good luck with that theory.
i suppose this just proves that the old Nifty Wran was absolutely right when he said that: “You have to feel that an election is coming on”, otherwise a premature rejection will happen.
William, have you ever done a post on elections like Victoria’s 1988 one – where it looks like a government can smell economic trouble in the air and goes to the polls to get reelected before the extent of it is known? I suspect WA and NT have an element of this, getting back in before it gets too much worse.
What’s better than beating the conservatives by a massive margin?
Ron, it’s obviously correct to say that the Greens got 4.1% of the vote, but that one number in isolation is not very informative.
Last time the Greens ran in 14 seats and got 3.9%. This time they ran in six seats and got 4.1%. The four seats they contested both times got an average pro-green swing of 6%. Their best result was 23.6% (+8.4) which I’m thinking puts it in the top 10 Green results at a State election.
d
Gary # 263. I know I know. Beating them with a narrow margin.
Darn
Centrebet said a lady from WA bet $50,000 on NT Labor at $1.10 two days ago.
While it is clear that there were many drivers for the swing, amongst it all, I trust this will serve as a lesson to parties who tolerate sexual harassers and to the harassers themselves. Voters don’t like this particular form of abuse of power. Congratulations to the woman concerned for sticking to her guns.
I hope that the WA voters now give their serial offender the same sort of treatment.
Diogenes, the interesting thing with the WA election is that the latest polls with a small sample size are tipping a tory win. Sportingbet won’t have a bar of this and have labour 1.18 and tories 4.40.
Re #263 & 265: don’t be so hasty, gentlemen!
Looking at the detail of the results for Fannie Bay, you’d have to say that there is still a possibility that this election will come down to a choice by the Independent, Gerry Wood, to decide the Government.
At the 2005 election, Clare Martin did slightly better out of the combined pre-poll, postal, absent and declaration votes for Fannie Bay than she did with the regular votes cast in the electorate booths on election day. Put that down, perhaps, to name recognition when the voter doesn’t always have how-to-vote literature.
This time round, the pre-poll votes split exactly 159 each for Labor & CLP, marginally worse than the 51% Labor got at the booths yesterday. The 46 postal votes counted last night went 24 to 22 in favour of Labor (52.2%).
At the last election there were 166 postals, 543 absent votes (ie where the voter turns up at a polling booth outside the electorate) and 20 declaration votes (where the voter is not on the roll and casts a vote later admitted to the count). If you assume the same total of postal, absent & declaration votes this time, then the CLP needs to get about 54.2% of the remaining votes to win Fannie Bay. Not out of the question at all.
269 canberra – I didn’t imply Labor has won. My point is if it does it is sweeter than winning by a large margin.
On the huge discrepancy between the betting market and the actual result, it’s probably just another example of the truism that our opinions are only as good as our information.
Without good polls etc, we had crappy information and formed a crappy opinion.
steve
Centrebet and Sportingbet are both still offering very generous odds on WA Libs. William has an article at Crikey, published before the NT vote, saying that the Libs are a good bet at those odds. I think William has remained “ahead of the curve”.
255
Thomas – If the ALP does hold Fannie Bay – and wins the election – I hope you are right about it being being because of the the attack by the CLP on public servants. Conservative politicians and their supporters often seem to forget that public servants are mostly modestly paid, hard working people with families to feed like everyone else. And they do a good job delivering a range of important services to the people. They do not deserve to be singled out as a convenient punching bag by self serving politicians.
One of those elections where undecided voters broke strongly one way: consider Vic in 1999, SA in 1979. Vote has fallen CLP’s way as Labor would have a clear 2PP majority if all seats had been contested, still a good CLP performance. Did high Green vote reflect disillusionment with Labor on the left? Would Martin have had more appeal to these voters? The argument that incumbency is crucial in NT politics looks to be refuted by this and the last 2 polls. Contra Adam the NT LA now looks more like a normal parliament than a shire council of permanent members.
I watched 20 minutes of The Insiders this morning. First time i’ve tuned in since the Nov election.
I don’t think i’ll bother again until maybe the next election.
What a bunch of washed up old windbags.
#262
Beattie was a master at this, 2001 and 2006.
NSW, although it has fixed terms, would have been very happy the election date was 2007 rather than this year.
Bracks in Vic 2002 went a full year early, one of the first possible dates for election, and romped it in.
I don’t think going early benefits the opposition unless they are already credible- and can play the “They’re running scared of us, what are they hiding from?” card. If the opposition is unelectable (as in QLD, or in Victoria 2002), a government can do what they like and nobody cares.
I admit I was shocked as to the swing against the NT Labor Government after keeping up to date with it last night. If it ends up being a hung parliament – I guess we could start to see the beginning of the cycle back to Qld 1998 [I know this was an odd example but it still remains] or more over Vic 1999 or SA 2002… the questions would be- would the independents back the minority Labor Governments as opposed to Liberal/National/LNP/CLP [all the same really] Governments? I always thought that the first two to fall would be WA this year [until I caught a sniff of changing winds] but still reckon it might or definitely NSW 2011. I think this will be the election that marks where politics is heading in the following few years re: the rise of the independents with both Labor and Liberals becoming indistinguishable. [Also NSW to watch for Greens in Marrickville if they can finally break through and get a lower house seat at a general election {Excluding Tassie}].
I still reckon Labor will get their one seat majority, making that punter sweat for every dollar of their bet, but it will be interesting to see how the election next time will occur and if the CLP will break back into any Labor Federal seats come 2010-2011. Perhaps the CLP can start asking their new MPs to help pay the debt off, since they already asked the whole of the NT anyway.
Although, with this result in NT, I think Labor under Stanhope are in serious trouble in ACT. I would like to see the odds on that one as I hear Labor down there is probably in more trouble than Labor in NT seemed to have been by the media.
Politics_Obsessed: Not going to happen. *Really* not going to happen.
The ALP here in the ACT are looking a bit tired, and they’ve had a few controversial issues, but the Liberals here are in the worst shape of anywhere in Australia, now that the Qld Libs are no more; it’s only been eight months since they had to expel the Shadow Treasurer, Richard Mulcahy, to try and end three years of very public internecine factional bloodshed. Until that happened, they’d had two blocs of three members who were not on speaking terms, were blasting each other through the press, and in one case was taking legal action against the other one; with poor old Bill Stefaniak holding the balance between the two.
The Greens may win an extra couple of seats, if the Senate results from ’07 is anything to go by (plus the fact that the leader in the Assembly, Deb Foskey, who cannot handle the media to save herself, is retiring and being replaced by a much better candidate); the independent mayor of Queanbeyan is a big chance to pick up a seat; Labor might also win Mulcahy’s seat, which should be a Liberal one. That’s it. Zero chance of the Libs winning government; I’d bet my house on it if I had one.
Rebecca,
Likely ALP will lose their majority though. Which could be portrayed as a loss to some degree.
Ron
You have used the 8% analogy again. I do not think this is reasonable. If you look at federal elections going back over 20 years there has been a decline in the combined vote of the major parties. Yes, at the last election this decline was slightly reversed, but still only 80% of voters voted ALP or Liberal. People exercised their votes in voting Green, Democrat, National, Family First, Hanson etc, or were informal. And I don’t believe you can discount the informal vote (or non-attendance either) as people who are somehow supporting the current major parties.
So the Greens polled 8% federally – this doesn’t mean that support or approval of the policies is restricted to those 8%. I actually know many ALP voters who are supportive of Green policies but vote Green ‘2’ because they either believe they have to vote for one of the two major parties (and need to stop the Liberals being elected) or want to have an impact on the policies of the ALP (and thus consider being more involved). Again, maybe I know people who are more accutely engaged than other electors, but this also extends to people with a more peripheral interest in politics.
Now, I’m not saying the Greens are about to win government – far from it – but the manner in which you discount voter intention is problematic. Considering our previous discussions, it would appear from the results that the Greens going ‘open’ in respect of preference direction did not massively damage the party in respect of winning votes, although I equally acknowledge that the Daly result would seem to indicate that it may have depressed an otherwise good result. From my (very) rough calculations, Green preferences seemed to flow to the ALP around 65%-70% – which is very different from the 80%-90% at the last federal election when the Greens DID preference the ALP.
Indeed, if absentees and postals do not bring up the turnout I’d also suggest that people have voted with their feet in respect of their attitude towards formal government in the NT. Whether that’s a reflection of cynicism or just not getting to the polls I leave for pollsters and the NTEO to try and figure out – does anyone know if any company/university/EC conducts any polling of this kind? I would half assume that an inquiry by the NTEO would include a survey of people who did not vote as why they did not vote, but I don’t know. And I am counting this separately from the ‘please explain’ letters that would normally be sent out.
I agree with both Rebecca (#278) & Darryl (#279) on the impending ACT election. Labor will become a minority government, having offended a number of people over their two terms. But the Liberals here are a complete laughing stock. It’s likely that Labor will lose seats to the Greens.
The last term of majority government was a decidedly abnormal outcome given the electoral system and numbers of seats in the Legislative Assembly.
281 Agreed. the ALP have been pretty shocking, but I can’t see a 30s something bloke called Zed winning – espeically as their policies smack of the lets pretend we have a bottomless pit of money type.
Definitely a minority govt and possibly a liberal one.
If labor and liberals are tied on seats and libs have achieved the majority of votes who will the greens support.
May even have the former lib Mulcahy and that indendant mayor holding the balance.
Labor is on the nose and has done so many back flips, twists and turns due to the approaching election that they should have been on the olympic gymnists team.
One of their blokes Barr, has the same smirky smirk as King Smirk, he has tried hard to get rid of it, but was still there plain as anything when he was announcing school closures. He will be lucky to hold his seat.
Labor to lose at least 2 seats, probably 3, libs to get 7.
The article doesn’t add much to the sum total of knowledge, but the headlines is a cracker.
http://www.theage.com.au/national/ufospotting-chicken-farmer-could-claim-balance-of-power-20080810-3sx4.html
Stewart @ 280,
Why do you think the informals and non-voters would be more favourably disposed to minor parties than the formal voters? Or have I misunderstood you?
In a way Labor is probably lucky to have had the near-miss in NT, rather than a more comfortable victory.
It’s only human nature to become complacent after a sequence of victories such as Labor had up to Nov 2007. If WA Labor have any brains they’ll now realise that the upcoming election is an important contest, against the best (?least bad?) leader WA Libs can put up, and that it needs to be taken seriously. Moreover the Nov 2007 Fed result in WA shows the Libs are, in some senses, far from a spent force there.
At least that’s what I’d be saying to Labor if it was a football team, and I was the coach.
Dyno @ 285
I’m suggesting that informals and non-voters may equally be seen to be expressing a political opinion, admittedly much harder to define than those that just number the boxes. Potentially, in not voting, they are giving an opinion on ALL political parties (and perhaps the political process?).
Consider the effect when there is a by election for a leader who resigns after losing an election. While there may be a rise in the votes for minor parties etc there can also be a rise in non-voting. This can be partly explained by the lack of absentee’s, but equally we hear of voters being annoyed at having to go back to the polls so quickly, ‘ annoyed that the MP didn’t stay the full term etc. If the turnout is really only going to be down to 75% in some electorates in the Territory this makes me wonder – some may be roll inaccuracies (from the transient nature of roll and people not being prepared for the election), but that wouldn’t seem to explain it all.
In the context of minor vs major parties it does mean you can’t say 92% of the electorate have endorsed the major parties when potentially only 70% have (and in some seats less than that).
Yeah Rebecca I admit seeing Zed’s face on front of the paper about his dual-carriageway road promise – did look scary. I can’t remember if it was Piping Shrike or someone else that did a comparison on the ages of all the Labor and Liberal leaders across the country. Zed’s the second youngest for memory. But from people I know down there [yes I’m not a territorian] most say they are really off put by Labor. I agree with Rod at #283 about all the back flips.
I’m just saying after this “”shock”” election result – that ACT Labor would seem more vulnerable than they currently seem. I’m thinking Labor 8 or 9 seats. I don’t think they’ll go backwards to 7. I reckon the Liberals will hold on 7- with one independent and one Greens. [As much as the Greens talked last election about getting 2 seats – I really can’t seem them pulling through this time. I could very well be mistaken… I reckon it’ll be close to two seats – but as discussed previously on this site – CC is now “dominated” by the majors and have seem to be quiet down in ACT since the last election.] It’ll be hard for them to break through -although – if Labor really does botch their campaign- I wouldn’t put it past the Greens. Stanhope, from what I hear, still has a lot of respect from the ACT popular [esp after the anti-terrow laws fiasco] and that might carry Labor through this time.
populace* not popular
Rod: It’ll almost definitely be a minority government in the ACT, but there really is zero chance of a Liberal one. They’ll be lucky if they can regain Mulcahy’s seat; I would be extremely surprised if they picked up any new seats.
There’s also virtually no chance of Mulcahy being re-elected – he has no profile outside of his factional shenanigans, and he makes Genghis Khan look like a communist in a place where that doesn’t go down real well. A much more likely outcome: back to minority government, with the Greens (and Pangallo if he gets elected) holding the balance of power, as in basically ever election before 2004.
Barr isn’t in much danger either. Two years ago, after the school closures stuff, I’d have said he was gone, but it seems to be largely forgotten outside of those affected, the civil unions stuff didn’t do him any harm, and he’s being seriously talked about as the next Chief Minister.
Politics_Obsessed: I think the Greens getting two seats is a strong possibility. The retirement of hard-left Labor MLA Wayne Berry in Ginninderra has left the last “death” seat there back open; until Mary Porter miraculously won it for Labor in 2004 (thus handing them majority government), it had always been held by minor parties. The Greens previously held it 1996-98 before their member retired and they lost it to an independent, and then to the Dems; with the Senate results and the on-the-noseness of Labor, I think they have a good shot of getting back. As for Stanhope…I think he’s taken a pounding in the popularity stakes this term, but he’s still more considerably more popular than Zed Seselja.
anyone know what the 2PP result is?
The Legislative Assembly in the ACT should be expanded to 21 seats (3 seven-member electorates).
Then the Greens may get 3 or even four seats.
Politics and Rebecca
Interesting result in ACT would be labor 7, lib 7, Pangallo, Mulcahy and 1 greens.
Who would form govt, especially if libs got more primary votes.
Rod: It might be an interesting theoretical, but it’s not going to happen. The seventh seat in Molonglo is going to be an all-out battle between the Liberals, Labor and Pangallo; Mulcahy isn’t even in the running.
I know folks from interstate seem to be enthralled by the prospect, but perhaps I need to repeat this: really, there is absolutely no chance that the Libs here are even going to come close to victory. It’s a naturally Labor territory, the Libs are in the worst state of any conservative party in the country and the government isn’t that unpopular. I might remind people that the only Liberal leader to actually win an election in the ACT was Kate Carnell, who was both well to the left of and way more charismatic and well-liked than any of the current Liberal caucus.
The current standings in the Assembly are 9-6-1(Green)-1(Mulcahy). The only seat which I suspect Labor might be in serious danger of losing is the open seat in Ginninderra, which is probably more likely to go to the Greens than anyone else, but could go to the Liberals. The second question is the fate of Richard Mulcahy’s seat – he ain’t going to win it, but it could go to Pangallo or either Liberal or Labor. For those dreaming about Labor equalling the Liberals in seats, where the heck do you think those seats are going to come from?
Looking at the outstanding result for the NT Greens,
and hysterical behaviour of Labour Party hacks in the lead up,
could some have been privy to private polling.
Lets see if we can extrapolate my theory across to the WA election
Judge,
Why is it a good result for the greens? 4.1% of the vote and only 0.2% swing?
Darryl, they only fielded candidates in six seats: 13.5 per cent in Araluen, 14.8 per cent in Braitling, 7.9 per cent in Daly, 18.4 per cent in Greatorex, 23.6 per cent in Nightcliff, 15.6 per cent in Port Darwin.
Pseph at 291
The 2PP is 52.5/47.5 CLP/ALP
but that is a bit skewiff as the two uncontested electorates need to be added in at 65/35 or so ALP/CLP which is what they would have gone.
Thanks William. That sounds much more impressive.
SENIOR federal ministers have cautioned against reading too much into the Northern Territory election result, but warn that next month’s Western Australian poll will also be tough for Labor.
NT swing ‘nothing to do with Rudd’
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24156638-12377,00.html